is a memorial. The Seventy render it sometimes by μor, sometimes by 'avaμmois, and our Saviour, the Solomon here, has used it on a most sacred and love-displaying occasion ; Εις την εμην αναμνησιν, say his historians; 'In meam commemorationem,' Arius Montanus, in remembrance of me; which is rather diminutive, and diminutively understood, properly and more expressively of the design- To be my memorial.' We will commemorate thy love.' 777 dadicha, plural, thy loves: Christ's love is manifold in himself, both as living and dying love; manifold in its operations to his church, forgiving, sanctifying, glorifying love, divine love in action, human love in suffering; so may very justly be called Loves.' More than wine:' So we read ♪♫, Heb. a vino, from wine. I know the preposition, which radically signifies from, is commonly the note of what grammarians call the compara'tive degree' in Hebrew, and is in Greek rendered by 'g, super, supra, above; and our translation always follows this as a rule. But that it should be always so, does not appear. The context may sometimes indeed lead to it; but when the context does not absolutely require it, there can be no necessity for adhering strictly to it; especially in such a case as here before us, where the comparative meaning is not so very intelligible, and where we have such a clear key of interpretation otherwise. It is certainly no great stretch, a christian may think, when we meet with comme'morating' and wine together in the same sen tence, tence, to bring in the eucharistic institution, and thus read this refreshing text, We will commemo' rate,' celebrate thy love, thy manifold love, UTER onov, super vinum, over wine; which will also serve to illustrate the parallel exclamation in the end of the second verse. We have a promise to this effect, and with something of an eucharistic aspect 'They that dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall revive as the corn (relative to the bread), and blossom as the vine; his (scent, we read it, zachrie, literally as on the margin) memorial, as the wine of Lebanon'. A due attention to this prophetical promise, along with many more such passages, would help to take off the ridicule, to which our careless translation has exposed an apophthegm of our royal preacher's, which we read, A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things;' but literally in the author's words, making bread for a rejoicing, and wine that delighteth the living ones, and the desirable one will answer for the all3' Be in this what may, if the sense I have given of the text in the song will stand good, (and none should attempt to overthrow it, without assigning their reasons for so doing), then we see the happy consequences of being brought into the king's chambers, and in how beautiful an order, notwithstanding the seemingly unconnected, but really a Eccles. X. 19.. I Hosea xiv. 7. ly apposite change of number, the progress of the church to the several stages of felicity is in this verse carried on. VER. 5.-I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. • Lest I should be exalted above measure thro' the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh ',' said once an apostle, after the rapturous entertainment he had been blessed with. Such a lesson is the church taught here, by this mixt description put into her mouth, of • being black like the tents of Kedar, but comely like the curtains of Solomon.' Black, we read it, which is too strong, and gives a disagreeable idea. shehurah, is nigricans, fusca, grey, darkish, &c. The idea is taken from the morning, which , shahar, signifies, and under which she is spoken of in ch. vi. 10. as fair and clear. • Who is 'she that looketh forth as shahar, og Gr. aurora Lat. the morning, fair as the moon, clear 'as the sun,' &c. beginning with greyness, but advancing into brightness, as our rural observation says, 'the morning grey makes a fair day.' The proper word for real black, is the other word here, 777, kedar, blackness of darkness, &c. Her situation, she says, among these tents, (See the lamentation, psalm 1 2 Cor. xii. 7. psalm cxx. 5. Woe is me, that I-dwell among 'the tents of Kedar'), which was her morning, early, infant state, had obscured her, and tinged her with a darkish unseemly colour; but such as, like the greyness of the morning, might be removed and changed into comeliness; which we know, kedar, absolute blackness, cannot; real black being the only colour in nature that will not take on another dye. This is a humbling confession to one that was rejoicing in the king's chambers; but as all such, when sincere, are sweetened with the joyful remembrance of an agreeable change, like the encouraging voice to the apostle under his humiliating stroke, above referred to', 'My grace is sufficient for thee,' &c. So here, says the church, I am comely like the curtains of Solo'mon;' comely, desirable, not from any native beauty, or inherent perfections, but N, (the passive form of 8, auah), made so adorned, beautified, &c. like the curtains of Solomon.'. Who ⚫ coverest with light as a garment,, (the very letters of Solomon's name,) and spreadest out the heavens like a curtain, . The descriptive words are the same in both places; and if there be a resemblance, as the psalmist says, between light and what the Canticles call Solomon, which might be exemplified in sundry particulars, and between the heavens and curtains, which admits of no difficulty, may not this poetical text of the psalm 6 2 επισκηνωσεις psalm be some kind of illustration of what the church means here by this diversified acknowledgment, that though, in her natural original state, she was infected with something of the black tinge of the kedar tents, yet when her Solomon had dif fused his light about her from his heavenly curtains', then she became comely, pleasant, beautiful; and could look back to her former condition with even some degree of joy, in the language of the apostle, which every one of her pious members may adopt, Most gladly therefore will I glory in 'mine infirmities, that the power of Christ, the light of Solomon, may rest, wσн, dwell, ta'bernacle, upon me.' The idea, which this gives, might be enlarged upon. But my design is only to point it out from the words, and refer the improvement to my readers. It will fall in here to be asked, who are those daughters of Jerusalem,' now for the first time before us? This is a frequent appellation in the prophetical language of scripture, and it needs no proof that the church is in that typical style understood by Jerusalem. We know, too, how many promises there are of bringing in Strangers, Aliens, Gentiles, into what Jerusalem signifies. These additionals, converts, or dependants, are, in Hebrew phrase, called daughters. So it is in the historical chorography of the country, in the books of Joshua, Chronicles, &c. where, for what VOL. II. See it literally fulfilled to the old church-Exod. xiv. 20. Psalm lxxviii. 14. &c. |